The Board of the Political Science Association of Armenia at its meeting of October 7, 2014, expressing concern over the exacerbating confrontation between the Russian Federation and the United States, adopted an Address to the Presidents of the Russian Federation and the US, Their Excellencies Mr. Vladimir Putin and Mr. Barack Obama, urging to return to the “reset” policy in the relations between the Russian Federation and the US. The text of the Address was delivered also among all the international missions accredited to the Republic of Armenia. We publish below the full text of the Address presented by the Chairman of the Political Science Association of Armenia, Doctor of Political Science (RF), Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Defense University (US), Visiting Research Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and Elected Full Member of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation, Major General Hayk Kotanjian.
The Honorable President of the Russian Federation Mr. Vladimir Putin!
The Honorable President of the US Mr. Barack Obama!
All of humanity is seriously concerned with and alarmed at the tensions increasingly deepening and threatening to escalate into a confrontation between the two nuclear powers ‒ the US and Russia. Due to the extremely important role, position, and influence on the modern world, the states headed by you possess, a concern looms over the peoples that, in case the confrontation between the two leading nations of the world persists and aggravates, the clear signs of which are already observed, it may leave beyond the conflict between the US and Russia. Experts have long warned that the nuclear arsenal of the two states is enough for several-time destruction of our common home – the planet Earth. We are confident that this speculative conclusion should not become a reality, especially as in this case there will be no witnesses to this event, as with the Globe all humanity inhabiting it will disappear. We have no slightest doubt that you are not for it too.
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The Honorable Mr. Putin!
The Honorable Mr. Obama!
By fortune the states headed by you carry such a paramount mission as the responsibility to ensure safe existence, development and prosperity of our planet and all the people inhabiting it, and for their right to live in peace. Meanwhile, in terms of the political realities of the day, the challenges are intensifying, the sources of which are international terrorism and organized crime, drug and human trafficking, environmental problems on a global scale. The states you head, as the key actors in the world politics, are to lead efforts for consolidating the international community in the struggle against these threats.
It seems that in these circumstances the way out could be the return to the policy you have pursued recently, which has already gone down in history as “the reset policy of the Russian-American relations”. This is a proven policy based on negotiations, dialogue, compromise and mutual respect, which aroused hope for peaceful and sustainable development of peoples, led by you, and the humanity as a whole, and received great support from the international community. We agree with those scholars who believe that such a policy has not exhausted itself and can serve to mitigate and improve the US-Russian relations, and contribute to the task of normalizing the international relations.
The Political Science Association of Armenia has the honor to request that you take the steps necessary to return to the “reset” policy. Undoubtedly, the states you lead possess a huge professional resource to ensure and implement the policy of rapprochement, as well as historical experience of conflict resolution between the two nuclear powers. Modern trends in the rise of global confrontation make the interaction of your states within the UN Security Council – based on principles of trust and prevalence of global security interests ‒ necessary than ever. In addition, the Association urges you to make use of the acquired and reviewed mechanisms of interaction between your states within the OSCE – an organization drawing together the interests of the Russian Federation, the United States of America and the European Union, as well as a number of countries that share the universal values of security and cooperation. In the context of the contemporary development of the confrontation potential in Europe, the intensification of the cooperation within the OSCE is first of all necessary from the point of view of the leading role of the powers headed by you as the guarantors of the Pan-European security.
On the basis of the professional duty uniting political experts of the world, the Political Science Association of Armenia, consolidating the academic potential of political experts, political sociologists and conflict analysts of Armenia, has the honor to address to the Russian Political Science Association and the American Political Science Association, with a proposal to apply their academic expertise to solve this key problem, so fateful for the mankind.
The Honorable President of the Russian Federation Mr. Vladimir Putin, the Honorable President of the US Mr. Barack Obama, people all across the Globe will be deeply grateful to you for this decision, which will provide you a place of honor in the world history!